


Game Booth Prize

by Anonymous



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, My First AO3 Post, One Shot, and drunk lol, expect terrible puns tho, reader is somewhat tsundere, so don't expect regular update, that develop on itself, will add tags later on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-13 23:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10524270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: It's a game with a monster. A fun one, with such unusual prize too.





	1. Chapter 1

“Hey, let’s try this next!”

  
Your friend came approaching with a faint panting. With a tired smile, she said, “Alright, alright, but let’s cool down a bit first, okay? Man, I’m just glad you don’t even drink in a regular basis.”

  
Chugging the can of beer you still had in hand, you gave her a pouting look. “What is that, you don’t like me unwind a bit? And you say I’m too uptight!”

  
“I know, I said it,” she replied again with a slight chuckle. “And I’m so happy to see you hyped up now. Just give me a sec to catch my breath, okay?” Having said that, your friend then erected herself, and started to look around. The carnival ground was crowded, as what could be expected when there were such attraction in the town. You had decided to come as well, though it was based on a whim of your friend at first. You would rather snuggle up in your blanket in autumn nights like this, and maybe watch Netflix while drinking something warm. But your friend was just really persistent at wanting to go to the carnival, that she started to annoy you as your room mate. In the end, knowing that you wouldn’t have a chance to have a calm night either way, you agreed to go with a grieving face. Well, it was a grieving face until that nice friend of yours treated you some cans of beer — a consolation prize, so she called it.

  
“So… which booth was it, again?” your friend finally asked, after she regained her breath. You enthusiastically pointing at one booth at the corner that didn’t seem to be so crowded. Or more precisely, seemed to attract almost no customer. There was nothing wrong with the booth itself — it was a game of ball-throwing with prizes, it seems. But, it wouldn’t be a big question once one recognises what the booth keeper was. It was a figure of a rather short heightened guy, clothed in a comfortable-looking blue hoodie jacket. However, once you direct your sight to the face, you would realise that it was nothing but a skull. No, it wasn’t a mask, it was a real skull. A white, round skull, with a pair of eye sockets and a grinning, bare teeth.

  
You too, was grinning as you saw your friend gaping to see your pick. “Um, you really want to go there?” she spoke to you, sounded a bit nervous. “In case you’re too drunk to realise, that’s… seemed like the booth is run by a… skeleton. You know…” and her voice trailing off.

  
But no, you were not too drunk yet to overlook that fact. You knew that standing by the booth, was a skeleton, and that he was one of those monsters. Not so long ago, your sleepy little town was shocked by the arrival of a group of monsters. They said they didn’t mean any harm and had came with good intention to live alongside with humanity in peace. Apparently, they had been trapped underground, and had just achieved their freedom. Such a story that no one would have believed if only there wasn’t a human child with them, that miraculously managed to talk things out between the humans and the monsters. Thus, you counted that it had been around six or seven months, that the monsters had started to blend into your civilisation. Emphasis on “started”, though.

There surely still a large gap between the two group exist — it would take longer for the society to be normal again to the way it was. But at least for now, the humans had been able to manage living with the monsters without much conflict — if not great awkwardness. Usually, you wouldn’t be the kind to walk up and greet a monster either, but tonight was different. You couldn’t deny that you actually had curiosity for these new neighbours of yours, and alcohol would be your partner in crime to dig their dirt tonight. Or anything that could be dug out about them — you weren’t like those that were radically sceptic among the town people. You were more like on the grey area where one would avoid any inconvenience of outer drama as best as possible.

“I know, but it isn’t like we gonna pick a bone with the guy, right?” you said to your friend, still grinning. “We’re just coming to play some game. Who knows, he might be actually pretty friendly. Look at that big grin he has!”

  
Your friend just gave you a look of disbelief to hear your words. But in the end, she replied with a sigh, “I thought I ever heard you say, that in our era, those with biggest grin are the most suspicious. But well, let’s go. I guess it’s just the price for me taking you out tonight. Might as well get to know our new town fellows better.”

Thus, the two of you paced toward the game booth. That wasn’t so hard, as the crowd got thinner the closer you got to the booth. Beside that, the closer you two got, you also noticed the booth keeper seemed to be dozing off while watching the booth — most likely got bored while waiting for a customer. He just stood there, hands in pocket, and somehow had his hollow pair of eye sockets closed, meanwhile his shoulder moved slowly up and down in the slow rhythm of sleep.

  
“‘Ey there, bud!” you greeted him, “You got a game?”

The skeleton opened one eye (socket, which apparently wasn’t so hollow, as you saw a white light glowing in there like a pupil), and spoke to you with a bass, laid back voice, “Oh hey there, pal. Sure, I got game here. You got three chances to win some prize,” here, he gestured lazily to the merchandises on the rack, at the rear of the booth, “for 1000G — I mean, 50 bucks.”

“That’s friggin’ expensive!” you almost choked at your beer to hear the price.

The skeleton shrugged and said with that perma-grin of his, “Well, that’s the normal price anyway. Since tonight is special — just one dollar.”

“That’s better.” Then, turned to your friend, you asked her, “Anything you want? I’ll get it for you.”

Your friend jolted slightly, seemed like she was nervous to actually face to face with a monster for the first time. She scanned the far rack briefly, then pointed to a cat plush dolls, “There! That one seems so fluffy!”

Muttered an “awright”, you reached the pocket of your jacket for some money, and found a five dollar. You turned all in, for fifteen balls to use to fall that plush doll. It took some time and efforts — more over being a bit tipsy you were. You ended buying even more balls, but with some determination, that big cotton kitty finally felled down and soon was in the embrace of your friend, who was a passionate cat lover.

You felt a little satisfaction of your foolish action — wasting around fifteen bucks in one carnival booth game. But seeing your friend squealing in gratitude sincerely just made you smile.

A low chuckle could be heard, and you turn to look at the grinning skeleton. “You’re also a determined one, eh kiddo? So I guess humans aren’t all that bad after all.”

It was rather surprising to hear someone speak of you like that, over something trivial like this. Not many ever told you such thing and suddenly, here you heard it from a monster.

“Welp, here ya go,” the skeleton spoke again before you could think of any way to reply. He gave you another three balls, saying, “Bonus for you. just aim for what you want.”

  
You blinked at the three balls at your hands, muttered a thank, then slowly scanned the prize racks. Mostly were dolls and child toys, nothing you really wanted or needed — though for some reason there was also a bottle of ketchup there, something you might need when you got the urge to fry some fries. But you could be sure that you had one or two bottles at home for now… For a long while, your hand hovered on the air, eyeing at each and every prizes on the rack, until you reached the end of the rack, and… your eye landed on that lazily grinning skeleton. And, you grinned along.

  
This time, it was the skeleton’s turn to blink in confusion, but soon a bluish hue adorned his cheeks as your intention started to dawn upon him. He hadn’t had the chance to inquire you, as you had thrown the first ball with a quite abrupt move. Unexpectedly, avoiding your ball seemed to be something quite effortless for the skeleton. You almost couldn’t belief your eyes, certainly didn’t expected that appearance of a douche bag hid such a nimble muscle. Err, bones.

The skeleton, though still had that blue hues around his cheeks — which you assumed to be his way to blush by now — grinned a tilted grin. You could hear challenge in his voice as he said, “Well, aren’t you ambitious, kiddo? Not that I don’t like it, but I’m tellin’ you, it ain’t gonna be easy.”

It felt contagious — his challenge and his grin. Soon enough, you found yourself showing off a challenging grin as well, and started a ball-throwing game of a whole new level. To aim for the toys and dolls on the far off rack was one thing — you need only to calculate the distance and control your power as much as needed — plus a good vision and a little right flick of hand would help. But to hit that skeleton was a real challenge. You would have to anticipate his movement — which was like nothing you had ever expected of a living skeleton. He seemed to be able to read your movement, and he had such a nice, trained reflex. To top it off, he even had that constant grin on his skull-face, and never bother to take out his hands of his pocket, as if you were really nothing of a threat to him.

However, this was a game like you never knew before. Before you knew it, you were gasping for air, sweating from the sport, hadn’t found even the slightest chance of hitting him, but found yourself putting out a fifty buck out of your wallet nonetheless — reloading your ammo. All the while, your friend watched in pure awe. And perhaps, not just her, but the by-passers had started to form a small crowd around the booth as well. Who wouldn’t have given this booth at least a questioning glance to this uncommon scene? A human, tried to “win” this ball-throwing game and the prize aimed was nothing else than the booth keeper itself! On top of that, a monster! However, it couldn’t be denied that whoever could see how both participant — yes, both you and the skeleton — seemed to be enjoying this game.

  
_I’m gonna need strategy_ , you thought at some point as you started to feel your arm getting sore. Your arm just wasn’t quick and powerful enough to beat the skeleton by normal physical mean. You’d have to turn to strategic play if you were to win this…

  
Abruptly, you catch a glimpse of the bottle of ketchup that was on rack. You couldn’t have guessed why it would be there, but a little voice at the back of your head told you that this ketchup actually mean something… Following your gut, you then got ready to give a full-out blow. The skeleton, seeing that you were gathering your last strength, commented, “Heh, kiddo, if you think sheer strength—“

He stopped mid-sentence, suddenly realised your intention. You could feel a satisfied grin bloomed on your face, as the skeleton’s glance followed your aiming eyes… “Wait, that’s—!”

Too late. You had thrown the ball, feeling like a baseball player in the Koshien Stadion. The skeleton’s grin for once dropped, allowed you a brief glance of what seemed like mild panic on his skull face, before you saw a flash of blue. Then, there was… a lag in your mind.

“Ouch.”

You blinked to hear the skeleton muttered a low groan of pain, in expense of saving the bottle of ketchup. However, you weren’t blinked out of disbelief in your victory — you were confused, knowing that something was rather awry. There was distance of where the skeleton was and the ketchup bottle — you knew that he could move so fast, but just now, you couldn’t even see him moved…

A sound of applause and cheers erupted, made you taken by another surprise. Turned around, you were startled to see the small crowd you had managed to collect — you were completely oblivious of them, too absorbed by the game to notice their presence. And all of a sudden you felt your cheek heated up. You never liked being in the centre of attention.

“Welp. That was a nice game.” You jolted once again, as you felt a hand touched your shoulder — it was a skeletal hand, but somehow the pressure you felt wasn’t much different of that made of flesh. You turned and faced the grinning skeleton. The grin seemed to be softer this time, just like the one you saw not so long ago as he gave you the bonus balls. He spoke again, “I’m sorry, but the ketchup is still mine,” and he lifted the bottle of ketchup that was now in his hand, “but the good news is… you win your first intended prize. Congrats.”

It took you a second before you could register his words completely in your mind. And then, you could feel heat crawling up your cheek. Suddenly sober, your mind tried to come up with something to say — but your friend beat it.

“Aww, congratulation! You finally got yourself a guy!” she exclaimed enthusiastically, rubbed the big cat plush’s snout on your face.

Your voice was muffled through the soft fur, as you tried to deny, but then you heard another voice spoke near by your ear, “The name Sans, by the way.”  
Yelped, you jumped back giving a surprised glare to the skeleton, who had sneaked out from behind the booth counter. (Or was he really sneaked?) He had that tilted grin on his face, while his glowing white pupils eyeing you with amusement from its eye sockets. You heard him letting out a low chuckle before saying, “You’re kinda cute for a human. Guess it wouldn’t be so bad to be taken home as prize by someone like you.” And he winked.

What surprising was, not how that skull had managed to wink — but how the gesture seemed… so suiting the skeleton — Sans, was it? — that for a millisecond you thought your heart skip a beat. Which just messing more with your head, as you felt your cheek grew even hotter and you started to hear the whistling and congratulations coming from the crowd.

You could only think of how, when you thought you could start to enjoy the carnival, this kind of mess befall you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, this work was inspired by a piece of art by Bunny-King in tumblr. Sadly, the account was hacked and deactivated, so I can't give you the link :'3
> 
> edit: Thank you for the comments, btw! Perhaps it's because my slow internet connection, but I can't reply to them. AO3 just says that's it a heavy load :'3  
> As about continuation, I've been dry of inspirations these days. So this will stays as one shot for now. But sure, I'd like to try to write the follow-up if I get the spark of inspiration (and the gears to write). Or... perhaps anyone have ideas or prompts I could use for the continuation? :3c


	2. Date? No, It's a Research

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who would've thought that skeleton like puns? And astrophysics and such!

“Um, excuse me? I’m looking for… woah.”

Woah. A round white skull standing before you, wearing the very same blue hoodie you remembered from — how long had it been? — that night in carnival. The white light in his hollow eye-sockets seemed to shrink just slightly, made for a surprised expression upon the unexpected reunion of you two. And you could be sure a surprised expression could be found on your face as well — with your jaw dropping and a dumb stare on your face, that is. Gone was the smile you had prepared for the sake of social politeness. And surely, the chance to escape that situation had never even existed, given the pile of books you had in arms at the moment.

Why would you want to escape? Well, reminiscing one of your drunken session wasn’t one of your hobby…

“Hey, fancy meeting you here,” the living skeleton spoke up after the first second of startle. “You still remember me, kiddo? You came to my booth in the carnival…”

“Uh, yeah,” you finally found your voice. Then, forcing a smile which came out awkwardly, you went on, “You’re… Sans, right? Heheh, yeah, it’s really… something, to see you here.”

Sans the skeleton chuckled. Seemed like he could sense your nervousness (who couldn’t?) though he said nothing about it. Instead, he said, “Heh, I’ve been wanting to see you again since then. If only I knew you’ve been hiding in the library, I would’ve booked a date to come here earlier.”

You blinked to hear the words, all the “speech” you had prepared in head vanished. Did he just… made a pun? “Pfft!”

“Eyy, I’m glad you’re the kind of person who could roll with the puns. We should exchange addresses and write letters sometimes — so we could be pun-pals, yeah?”

This time, a laughter escaped your mouth. It rung in the relatively quiet room for about a second before you held it back — before anyone could tell you to quiet down. You got to admit that you had an… uh, unique sense of humour, and it was such a great coincidence that this monster could “click” so easily with it; laughing was one good way to melt away your tension.

Sans surely seemed satisfied of himself as well. The lights that were his eye-pupils seemed to dance merrily, and the perma-grin on his skull widened just slightly. “So,” he spoke again then, looking at the pile of books in your possession, “You seem busy. Are you reading all of that, or…?”

“Nah, I’m a part-timer here,” you pointed at and ID-card attached at your shirt then (as much as you could with hands full of books) and went on, “I’m supposed to return this books to their place. But yeah, I often read too. Need to read a lot to study, especially if you’re studying my field… Um, what are you doing here, by the way?” you hoped that you didn’t sound rude or hasty as you asked. “If you’re looking for a book, I might be able to help you, but if you wanna talk about that, uh… that night’s prize, then you shouldn’t worry about it, really. What I did back then was just for fun, after all…”

At this point, you could feel the slightest of warmth creeping up your cheeks. You remembered how you pulled your friend’s hand after that game, dragging her to escape the crowd and the carnival ground — because apparently, your little stunt had drawn not just people’s curiosity, but also made them willing to try the game booth run by the monster; busied him and giving you a chance to escape. It was a good game, really — great, even — but you were the kind of person who liked to keep a low profile.

“Aw, come on, kiddo,” Sans replied. “I was about to close down my booth when you came. It was thanks to you I could keep the ball rolling for the night. Plus, you surely have a lot on the ball. Really helped me feed my wallet.”

You snickered again at his puns. The damage that game did on your wallet was something indeed (and it was because of your own recklessness too, actually) but somehow he made it sound like that was worth it. And that was what you told him. “You shouldn’t repay me, really. The game itself worth it. I had a lot of fun that night.”

“Really, kiddo? You won’t even take it if I offer you a date as the prize? You’ve won me in the game, after all, and if I remember correctly, you’re not having a guy at the moment.” He winked as he spoke those last words — amazed you at how that skull could make such facial expression.

With another warmth on your cheeks, you replied, “Ahaha, thank you, but no, thank you. I’m not into dating, believe it or not. Got to focus on my study after all.”

Sans let out a thoughtful hum for a moment, before he asked again, “What are you studying, kiddo? If it’s about things like quantum physics or astronomy, I can help you. Then we can have a study-date.” And he chuckled a little. “That’s why I came here, actually. I was about to ask you whether there’s a section here for such books.”

You blinked to hear those words. Did this skeleton just said he knew quantum physics and astronomy? Looking at how he dressed up lazily, only in hoodie and black short — and pair of pink slippers too, you just noticed — no one would ever expected him to be that kind of smart-ass even if he were a human.

“The natural science section is at the rear,” you replied with a nod from your head, “And… thank you for the offer — quantum physics and astronomy are cool, but it’s just not my forte. I’m actually studying history, and…” You voice found an abrupt fall as an idea popped into your head. Inwardly, you thought about what a fool you were for never thinking about this. Picking up a new tone, you started again, “Say, you said you’re willing to help me study… right? It’s not about physics, but I need a help with something else, and… I’m sure you’ll do just fine for it.”

The expression on Sans’ skull face shifted (and it was still such an intriguing thing to observe for you), as if he was raising a brow inquisitively. “Sure,” he shrugged, “If you say so. I won’t mind a study date about something not related with physics too.”

“Um, no it’s not a date,” you replied, “It’s more like… I need your help with a research. It’ll be like an interview, I guess. Or just chatting time, sharing stories…”

“Oh? But I thought that’s what people do in date,” Sans grin turned into mischievous smirk. “So you want the real date, after all?”

You tried to soothe down the tingling feeling in your ears as you heard the word “date”. Then, as if more to yourself, “Nnnope. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. There’s completely no romantic interest, okay? It’s purely for academic reason. Just… Gosh, it just that…” You gulped and dared yourself to go on, “Actually, I’ve been interested in the history of your kind. I’ve been hearing rumours about how you were… trapped underground, and… I’ve been looking around for information about it. After all, I’m a historian — well, I mean, a historian-to-be, since I’m still a student, but — I’ve never heard history telling about monster-kind, so… It’s completely for interest of knowledge, okay? No another reason…”

“Snrk.”

The sound stopped you, made you realised that you had just started rambling. You looked at Sans, whose grin was… gleeful. “Eh, sorry, kiddo,” Sans spoke up upon noticing your stare, his grin didn’t falter even a bit. “It just that… you’re… uniquely cute for a human.”

Damned bag of bones. He should be responsible and treat you an ice to cool down the heat on your cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God... that jokes was terrible. And it was rather short. Pardon me, I've tried my best X'D  
> Once again, don't expect update anytime soon. Though I'm looking forward to make it happen... But let's keep the low expectation, 'kay? :'3


End file.
